Gore Vidal - Empire

“Mr. Whittaker was evasive.” At first, Caroline had been puzzled; then angry. “I gave the date, next March, when I am twenty-seven. I said there was no way that I could not get my share. He said, ‘There are complications.’ I said, ‘What?’ He wouldn’t answer.”

“Of course not.” John was bitter. “The Whittakers often retain, as counsel, our friend Houghteling.”

Caroline experienced a sudden spasm of purest hatred for her brother. “Blaise is making it appear that the estate is in trouble…”

“Or nonexistent, or that there are obscure liens, or your rights unclear.” John the lawyer was far better company than John the husband. “I’m joining some of my clients for lunch. I may be able…” He did not finish the sentence. He would try to borrow money; so would she.

“I must join the Hays. He speaks this afternoon at the Exposition. Perhaps…” She did not finish her sentence either.

But Caroline had plans which did not include the Hays. Instead, she walked in the warm sunlight along the levee, crowded with visitors from out of town. By and large the natives ignored the river; all the houses, she noted, turned their backs on what was, after all, a phenomenal if not beautiful sight, a wide expanse of yellowish swift water, no uglier than the Tiber, say, and infinitely larger.

At a waterfront saloon called the Anchor she paused. As far as she could see along the levee, black men were loading and unloading cargo from barges, ships. Caroline thought of Marseilles, turned African.

James Burden Day, in statesman’s black, approached her from the saloon. “What a surprise,” he said, and looked at his watch. “You’re exactly on time.”

“I’m always on time.” She took his arm; and they walked along the levee like a contentedly married couple, which, in effect, they were. Caroline had long since accepted as an unalloyed bit of golden good fortune the fact that they were not obliged to live together, day after day, night after night, in the same conjugal bed, listening to the midnight cries of many children, the usual marital fate in this country. Occasionally, she needed him on days other than Sunday; but that was a small price to pay for Sunday itself; and now St. Louis. “Where is Kitty?”

“She chairs the Democratic Ladies’ Committee on Suffrage all morning. She will go with them to hear Mr. Hay at the Exposition. I shall go with you.”

“Or not.”

“Or not.”

They made love in Caroline’s suite at the Blair-Benton Hotel. Jim was nervous that he might be recognized. But the lobby was so crowded that no one could actually see anyone. Also, Caroline was now something of an expert on the use of hotels. Whenever she planned to meet Jim, she insisted on a first-floor suite in a hotel with at least two separate stairways from ground to first floor. Jim thought that had she been a man, she would have been a natural general. Caroline had disagreed. “But I might have succeeded at business,” she answered. “I would have cornered something like wheat, and brought on a highly satisfying financial crisis.”

Caroline watched Jim dress, a sight almost as pleasing as the reverse. He watched her, watching him; divined her mood. “You’re thinking about money,” he said.

“Its lack,” she said. “John has got himself-us, that is-in the deepest water. And Blaise has seen to it that I can’t borrow.”

Jim frowned, as a tooth of Caroline’s comb broke in his wiry coppery hair. “I broke your comb. Sorry. Why can’t you borrow? Next March it’s all yours, anyway. Bankers love that sort of short-term loan. How can Blaise stop them from lending?”

“By lying. Through his lawyers. Pretending the estate is compromised.”

“That’s easily investigated.” Jim sat in a rocking chair, and rested his head on a spotless new antimacassar. All St. Louis had been cleaned up for the world’s delight.

Caroline got out of bed; began to dress. “In time, I could straighten all this out. But there’s no time. Blaise has been putting pressure on John’s debtors. If he does not pay up now, he will be ruined.” Although Caroline rather liked the sound of “he will be ruined,” the reality was impossible to grasp. What was financial ruin? In her own life, there had been so many financial crises, so many friends or acquaintances “ruined,” and yet they went right on eating breakfast, and seeing one another. Ruin, as such, did not mean much to her. But the thought of a forced sale of the Tribune was like a knife at her throat, a most disagreeable sensation.

“You will have to sell to Blaise.” Jim was flat.

“I would rather die.”

“What else?”

“Other than death?”

“Other than a sale. You should follow Mr. Adams’s advice, and keep control…”

“If he will let me.”

Jim stared at her in the mirror, where she was now repairing the damage that Eros does to even the simplest coiffeur. “Why not,” said Jim, “let John go under? He’s the one at fault, not you.”

“Because, my darling, he knows who the father of my child is.” Caroline looked at Jim’s face, next to hers in the mirror, smaller than hers, thanks to perspective, so ably taught by the drawing mistress at Mlle. Souvestre’s. Caroline enjoyed Jim’s look of astonishment.

“But he’s the father, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not.”

There was a long silence, broken by Jim’s sudden laughter. He sprang to his feet, like a boy, and embraced Caroline from behind, kissed the nape of her neck, causing the hair, controlled at last, to come crashing down. “Oh, damn,” said Caroline, for the first time in her life. “My hair.”

“My child! Emma’s mine, too!”

“You sound like a horse-breeder.”

“Why not? I am the acknowledged stud. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. Now if you come near my hair again, I shall… do something drastic.” Caroline again pinned up the mountain of cleverly coiled hair, all hers , as Marguerite used to gloat, when she did the arranging.

Jim retreated to his chair. He seemed delighted; and Caroline wondered why. Men were very odd, certainly. Jim had two children now by Kitty; and one by her. “Are there any others?” she asked.

“Other what?”

“Children of yours that I should know about? When little Emma grows up, she will want to know all her half-brothers and -sisters.”

Jim shook his head. “None that I know of.” He frowned. “How does John know it’s me?”

“He doesn’t. I was just being dramatic. All he knows is that Emma’s not his. When I discovered I was pregnant, I told him, and he married me. It was my money for his-for my respectability.”

“Why didn’t you just pretend it was his?”

“Because I’ve never really been to bed with him.”

Jim whistled, an engaging rustic sound. “You really are French,” he said at last.

Caroline was not amused. “You would be surprised just how American I am, particularly in a situation like this. I am not about to lose…” But this, she knew, even as she spoke, was hollow boasting. She was about to lose the Tribune . She had considered, seriously, allowing John to fail; but honor forbade such a course, not to mention common sense. If she did not keep her side of their bargain, he would be free to divorce her or, worse, annul the unconsummated marriage, and tell the press why.

“Shall I work on Blaise? He seems to like me.”

“More than that is my impression.”

Jim’s head suddenly filled with blood; the face became scarlet. The hydraulic system that produced a blush was, Caroline observed, with a certain wonder, the same as that which produced a man’s sex. “I don’t,” he stammered, “know what you mean.”